The move would have put USA Today under the same roof as several major daily newspapers nationwide

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Both Gannett and Tronc have struggled with sliding ad revenue, and the two news companies' possible takeover deal fell apart by November.

Gannett on Tuesday walked away from its attempted takeover of Tronc, the publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other major dailies.

Gannett's target was elusive from the beginning, when it revealed in the spring that it was offering $388 million for the Chicago company, which it said refused to partake in "constructive discussions."

Tribune Publishing, as it was known at the time, released an acerbic letter calling Gannett "erratic" and "unreliable," saying that its executives cancelled meetings without reason and once asked it to make a decision about a proposed buyout within 90 minutes.

Tribune Publishing's Chairman Michael Ferro said in an interview then that Gannett was "trying to steal the company."

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Ferro, who owned a stake in cross-town rival Chicago Sun-Times, had himself just become an insider Tribune Publishing after investing $44.4 million in February.

Tronc Inc. at one point attempted to fend off Gannett by bringing in California entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong as an investor. He backed chairman Michael Ferro's plans to shake up the troubled media company with what it called tech-focused initiatives involving artificial intelligence and global expansion in entertainment news and video. The plans were widely criticized.

Both Gannett and Tronc have struggled with sliding ad revenue. Print ad revenues have been falling for years across the industry, and growth in digital ads and online-only subscriptions has not been enough to offset that.

Gannett, which recently released 2 percent of its workers, has dealt with those trends by snapping up newspaper companies. This year, the McLean, Virginia company acquired Journal Media Group, the publisher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Knoxville News Sentinel and other papers, as well as the North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record and other papers around that state.

Shares of Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, are up more than 5 percent in premarket trading Tuesday. Tronc's stock tumbled more than 29 percent.